CHAPTER 4 RESEARCH FINDINGS
4.1 The Higher Education System of Thailand
Each country has its own higher education development model which is consistent with its national conditions and national interests. The model of higher education of Thailand belongs to the traditional Western European model. Because of people's urgent demand for higher education in the 1960s, some private universities began to appear and coexisted with the government dominated public institutions.
After 1970s, higher education of Thailand was more flexible. There were both state- run universities and private universities, meanwhile, open universities were set up.
(Cai, 1983) At the present time, Thailand has formed a model of national universities as flagships, private universities supporting half of the market, open universities playing the leading role, and autonomous universities leading the future development of higher education.
The higher education policy of a country determines the speed, scale, direction, and level of the development of higher education. Since 1960s, Thailand has consistently adhered to democratization of education and advocated the equal educational opportunities at all levels. The state departments at all levels and private institutions
were organically coordinated, so that all levels of education could be fully opened to the public. In developing and expanding higher education, Thailand strove to link education with the needs of the economy and the society. (Zhao, 2000) In 1970s, the government of Thailand formulated and implemented policies to vigorously develop local universities and run private universities. As a result, a large number of universities in the mainland and rural areas were set up in Thailand, which broke the monopoly situation of the unified higher education in Bangkok and greatly met people’s demand for higher education. (Lin, 1986) In the early 1980s, with the problem of employment difficulties caused by the expansion of higher education, the government of Thailand proposed the adjustment of higher education from the quantity development to the quality development, and to strengthen and promote the close combination of the professional development and the demand of the labor market. The sixth five-year plan of Thailand (1987--1991) made it clear that the establishment and quality of educational institutions should be accelerated in accordance with the economic and social needs of the country, and the administrative institutions of education and the efficiency of education should be improved. (Huang, 2000) Since 1990s, the formulation of higher education policy in Thailand has been more closely linked to the national plan. For example, the Eighth National Higher Education Program (1997--2001) established the six principles for higher education institutions, that was, (1) high quality development, high quality as the goal of higher education reform, in line with international standards and the promotion of academic level through quality assurance and training of teachers; (2) ways and fairness, aimed at providing more educational opportunities for poverty; (3) efficiency and responsibility, aimed at exploring a more competent management and automatic regulation of the higher education mechanism; (4) practical and output, aimed at cultivating sufficient high-quality talents to meet the needs of the country's social and economic development; (5) internationalization and regionalization, aimed at promoting international education in Thailand, and encourage the academic community and students in Thailand to develop globalized perspectives; (6) privatization and cooperation, which are designed to allow private enterprises to participate more actively in higher education and to adopt cooperative management in the universities of Thailand. A series of policy formulation and implementation of the
development of higher education in Thailand has promoted the rapid development of higher education in Thailand, and made Thailand to the stage of popularization of higher education earlier.
Higher education in Thailand attaches great importance to serving the rural areas and communities. In 1971, the government of Thailand founded the first university of long distance education in Asia, the Open University of Ramkamheang, which stipulates that students are not restricted by age, gender, occupation and other aspects. It provided opportunities for higher education for a large number of students who failed to enter universities. In 1978, Thailand also established another university for long distance education, the Open University of Sukhothai, to provide higher education for adults or secondary school graduates who were unable to enter the college or university for any reasons. On the basis of the existing material conditions, adhering to the principles of lifelong education and continuing education, through the use of human and material resources outside universities and advanced communication media and computer technology, establish a set of the most reasonable self-teaching, self-learning model and an effective long distance education system to improve the citizens' own value and living standards.
With the rapid and balanced development of Thailand's economy and society, the internationalization of higher education in Thailand has gradually increased. The measures to implement the internationalization strategy of higher education in Thailand are: (1) attach great importance to foreign language teaching, and gradually expand the scope and courses taught by English; (2) add courses and lectures on foreign culture, history, law and customs; (3) send a large number of students to the United States, Europe, and Japan for doctor degree; (4) actively participate in various international activities and play an important role in them; (5) expand international exchanges of personnel and vigorously carrying out plans for international exchanges and cooperation; (6) vigorously develop international schools and international education projects, promote the outward development of education, introduce advanced educational resources from abroad, and reform the courses and teaching of higher education. The government of Thailand provided strong support for Thai
universities to actively, orderly and effectively participate in internationalization. At present, the UNESCO Asia Pacific Center, the organization of the ministers of education in Southeast Asia and the regional center for higher education development and regional education centers have set up offices in Bangkok. Bangkok has become the center of international and regional education organizations in the Asia Pacific region. With the deepening of the process of internationalization of higher education, the internationalization of higher education in Thailand has gradually formed and embodies its own characteristics, mainly in the following aspects: the internationalized administration, the internationalized curriculum, the internationalized teaching methods, and the internationalized talent training.
The quality assurance system in Thailand is based on the National Education Act (1999). The quality assurance system consists of the internal quality assurance system and the external quality assurance system. The internal quality assurance system is an integral part of the educational administration, which requires educational institutions to prepare annual educational reports to their affiliated departments and institutions to improve the quality of education and to standardize the level of education and to provide the basis for external quality assurance. External quality assurance is responsible by the office of national education standards and quality assessment. All teaching institutions must accept the external quality assessment at least once every 5 years. The results of the evaluation must be reported to the relevant agencies, and announced to the public. Quality assurance system conducts quality assessment to educational institutions according to relevant standards, and promotes educational institutions to improve education facilities, faculties and students' quality so as to achieve the purpose of improving the quality of education.